Today is the 241st anniversary of the US Declaration of Independence and I would like to take this opportunity to wish all my many American readers a very happy Independence Day.
Since 1776 when the United States of America gained, after much fighting, its independence from the British Crown, it has been a beacon of freedom and optimism for those in other more benighted nations where freedom is but a dream. America is a lodestone for those who revere freedom of thought, freedom of ideas and freedom of speech.
Americans have fought alongside and bled alongside the citizens of other nations, including that of my own British nation, to fight against tyrants whether they be Kaisers, Fuhrers or Commissars who would enslave or exterminate those who desired the freedoms that Americans have as a birthright. For the sacrifices that Americans have made for freedom and for justice I say ‘thank you’.
There are people alive today who would have been never have been born had not America rescued their ancestors from the depredations of the capricious tyrants and kings who threatened them in their home nations. America is also a shining example of how the melting pot works and brings togetherness and this can be set in sharp contrast to the failures and the divisions caused by the policies of multiculturalism such as are practised elsewhere in the world.
America stood up against the scourge of Communism and helped to guard Europe and other nations from annihilation by Soviet forces and the Soviet agents who tried to undermine our nations. The Cold War was just as much a world war as the other two giant conflicts of the 20th century the 1914-1918 war and the 1939-1945 war. Having spoken to a number of people who escaped the Communist Bloc or who left the Soviet controlled areas when Communism fell I know just how hellish life was for people under Communism and I shudder to think what might have been in places like Britain had not the USA set itself against Communist tyranny.
Even today the USA is a haven for those oppressed elsewhere and in that category I count the many counterjihad activists through out the world. Many of these people can only freely voice their views from US soil where their right to speak freely is protected by the US Constitution. If such people spoke their opinions in places like France, Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands or even the United Kingdom, places where free speech has been rapidly removed by governments, then they would without doubt be imprisoned for their views.
America’s love of freedom inspires others throughout the world to also love and desire freedom and former US President Ronald Reagan was correct when he said that America was a ‘shining city on the hill’. America is a beacon of freedom in a world where freedom is so often under attack on all sides.
America has benefited me personally by giving me a right to speak and by exposing me to ideas that are often drowned out by the dominant leftist narrative that exists in Western European countries and for that I offer my personal and heartfelt thanks.
So, my American friends, crack open a beer, have a barbecue and celebrate your nation’s independence. Keep doing what you are doing and keep revering and promoting the freedom that is denied by various governments around the world to so many others. I will leave my American readers with a small piece of advice, if you wish to take it and it is this: Do not take your freedoms for granted, fight for them, revere them, cherish them, because if you let politicians take them away your freedoms will never return.
Happy Birthday America
Oh, say can you see by the dawn’s early light
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars thru the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?
And the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o’er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines in the stream:
‘Tis the star-spangled banner! Oh long may it wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion,
A home and a country should leave us no more!
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps’ pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war’s desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heav’n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: “In God is our trust.”
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
